Gab Launches ‘Dissenter’ Platform to Add Comments Section to Every Page on the Internet

Scott Eisen/GettyCHARLIE NASH27 Feb 2019

Free speech social network Gab has launched a new comments platform, Dissenter, which allows users to make comments on every single website on the Internet without fear of censorship or banning.

The Dissenter platform, which integrates with Gab as either a website or a browser extension, allows users to comment on any web page in the world, with the ability to upvote, downvote, and reply to other comments.

“Dissenter creates a free speech comment section for any URL on the web. Users can access comment threads on a URL by searching for the link on Dissenter’s web app at dissenter.com,” explained Gab founder Andrew Torba. “Alternatively, if users install the free and open-source Dissenter browser extension, users can see comments being made on any URL they navigate to displayed in a sidebar in their browser.”

“Dissenter.com thus extends Gab’s reach, and its free speech platform, across the entire internet. Anyone with a Gab.com account can access Dissenter, and utilize it to express themselves on any content on the internet in any way they see fit, as long as their chosen form of expression is legal in the United States,” Torba continued, adding that “Dissenter has become a necessary tool due to rampant corporate censorship of ordinary internet users, whether that takes the form of YouTube demonetizing millions of videos and removing comment sections, Facebook and Instagram banning British activist Tommy Robinson for his political opinions, or Netflix banning comedy shows at the behest of Saudi princes.”

“A free, open-source utility that allows people to dissent from orthodoxy and express what they are really thinking, without fear of reprisal, is essential in order to wrest control of the Internet and public discourse from Silicon Valley tech giants,” he concluded. “Gab.com and dissenter.com lead the way in keeping the Internet free. All people are welcome to use our products to express themselves freely.”

One example of recent comment censorship was review website Rotten Tomatoes’ removal of comments for unreleased movies this week, which the review website claimed was due to “trolling.”

Despite Rotten Tomatoes removing the ability for users to comment on unreleased movies, like Captain Marvel, users can comment instead through Dissenter — either through Dissenter’s website, or directly from the Rotten Tomatoes movie page through a Dissenter browser extension.

Dissenter will most likely prove useful for YouTube creators and fans, based on the steps Google’s video platform is taking to curtail comments. YouTube recently announced that videos could be demonetized based on comments it deems inappropriate. This is likely to lead to videos posted with locked or heavily moderated comments sections, a problem tailor-made for Gab’s new comment tool.

It also appears to be taking on Disqus, the popular user comments system, which recently took part in the blacklisting of Infowars and Alex Jones.

In August, Disqus was one of the many Big Tech companies to ban Infowars from using its platform, along with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Apple podcasts, Spotify, and LinkedIn.

Gab launched in 2016 as a response to social networks censoring their users, and in October, the alternative social network was briefly knocked offline after being blacklisted by a number of hosting and domain providers.

Gab is currently banned from both the Google Play store, and Apple’s App Store.

Last year, Torba warned Big Tech companies that they “will be replaced,” and in 2017 alone, Gab raised $1 million in public investments.